Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Aristocrat who moved into Montmartre and made the poster into an art form.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born at Albi in 1864 into an old aristocratic family, broke both thigh bones as an adolescent and stopped growing, and settled in Montmartre in his twenties. He painted and drew the people there — La Goulue, Jane Avril, Yvette Guilbert, Aristide Bruant, the women of the brothels — with an eye that was affectionate and entirely unsentimental. His colour lithographic posters from 1891 onwards, printed at large scale for the Moulin Rouge and the cafes-concerts, transformed what a poster could be. He died in 1901 at thirty-six.
The lithographs and posters are the substance of this market and are catalogued by Delteil, by Wittrock and by Adriani. Everything turns on the distinction between a lifetime impression and the many later restrikes and photomechanical reproductions in circulation: paper, printer's marks, the monogram stamp, margins and colour freshness are what separate them, and the difference in value is enormous. Large posters were made to be pasted up and survive folded, backed on linen or trimmed, all of which bear on value. Paintings on card are scarce and heavily documented.
If you own a work by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
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Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.